


You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Kidnapped

by misura



Category: Zesty!
Genre: Declarations Of Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:56:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Don't move," Prince says. It sounds like 'I love you', but then, nearly everything Prince says to him sounds like 'I love you' to Zesty.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Kidnapped

The best plans are simple, and simple plans are the best.

Zesty knows this from a long acquaintance with plans and plots and what-nots, and a slightly shorter acquaintance with the fact that making something happen is nearly always less simple than making something _not_ happen. Developing a serum to clear miles and miles of rainforest is quite complicated, really; Zesty hasn't looked into the details too much, but he knows it's taken _months_.

Stealing said serum and disposing of it safely? Days, at most.

It's just a bit of a pity the rule seems to apply to matters of the heart, too.

 

Flirting used to come as easy to Zesty as breathing.

With Prince in the same room, in front of him, it still does - and that's _something_ , Zesty supposes; he hasn't lost his flair completely; it's just more focused, nowadays. Like he is himself.

He'll meet a hot guy and think: _'yes, he's hot, but Prince is hotter'_. He'll get someone to laugh at his jokes and think: _'I wonder if Prince would have laughed, too'_.

He'll slip into a backroom holding a safe containing a briefcase containing Certain Files and think: _'how did he know I was going to be here? is this love?'_.

 

The answer to the second question, obviously, must be 'yes'.

Any other answer would be grossly unfair, and Zesty would like to believe that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, the world is (mostly) fair, which is why his father is very rich and not in prison.

 

Zesty doesn't believe Prince will ever actually harm him. Not on purpose, as that would be cruel, and not by accident, as that would be thoughtless. Still, he's not entirely unaware that what he believes and what is true may be two things with a relationship not entirely unlike that of his parents, minus the occasional threat of armed invasion.

"Prince," he says, and there's a pose and an -ypoo and a hundred other things that should go with the name, but there's a sword pointing at Zesty's throat and half his brain is thinking _'this is so not romantic'_ while the other half is admiring the view.

"Don't move," Prince says. It sounds like 'I love you', but then, nearly everything Prince says to him sounds like 'I love you' to Zesty.

"You expect me to just stand here until the guards get back?" With anyone else, Zesty would laugh. Chuckle, at least. Other people might be pointing guns at him, and guns are much more dangerous than swords. Everybody knows this.

"You expect me to let you go?"

"Well," Zesty says, "think of what bad publicity it would be if I got caught. I'm sure it would be quite the scandal."

"I'm not letting you go," Prince says, and it sounds like 'I love you very much'.

"You say the sweetest things."

 

So really, that could have gone a lot worse.

Zesty could have forgotten his smoke bombs in his other suit, for instance, or Prince could have handcuffed himself to the briefcase, in which case Zesty could have only stolen it by stealing Prince, too, which would clearly not have been a good thing, even if the more Zesty thinks about it, the less clear he is on why, exactly, this is so.

 

The briefcase contains old newspapers and a Britney Fierce CD.

"Oh, it's on now," Zesty tells Prince's picture. It looks back at him with innocent eyes, but Zesty thinks he can see a hint of a smile.

"Maybe he didn't know," Melon says.

"Of course he knew." Pure, noble, mostly innocent and _devious_. "He tricked me. He's probably laughing at me right now."

 _'What are we going to do?'_ Punch writes.

Revenge, Zesty has heard, is a dish best served with ice cream.

"I'll make him feel sorry for ever crossing me," Zesty says. "And then I'll kiss it all better," he adds, because this is, after all, the love of his life they're talking about. 

 

"Me, or the files," Prince says. "Choose."

It's not a hard choice, which is how Zesty knows this is a dream.

"You."

Also: romance is never this easy, at least not when you're Zesty Tastee.

 

Prince isn't particularly hard to track down. Perhaps, Melon suggests, it's because he _wants_ Zesty to find him.

"Darling. You're back."

There wasn't much to work with, but Zesty's reasonably satisfied with the overall effect. Candles are always good for creating a special mood, of course, and with some flowers and a tastefully set table mixed in, one might almost consider using the word 'romantic'.

Zesty would prefer to use the words 'my sneak attack is better than your sneak attack', but he admits (if only to himself) that if Prince only wants to sit down and hold Zesty's hand and look into Zesty's eyes and talk about how wonderful and fabulous Zesty is, he might go along with that. Just for a while.

"What are you doing here?" would have been an acceptable response.

A simple "Zesty?" would have been fine, too.

Instead, what Prince says is: "I'm not going to give you the real files," and that's just rude, really, considering the amount of time and effort Zesty's put into turning Prince's room into a suitable place for a second date.

(Especially given what Prince did on their first one.)

 

Dinner by any other name has either gone cold or, in the case of the dessert, melted.

On the upside, Prince isn't pointing any pointy things at Zesty. Possibly, this is because Zesty's taken away his sword and tossed it out of the window (where Melon has hopefully picked it up and carried it to safety) but Zesty'd like to think that even if Prince _could_ , he still _wouldn't_.

It's not easy to come up with any convincing threats against the person you're in love with.

"I'll kiss you again," gets Prince to blush, but not like he's entirely horrified at the idea. "And then I'll ... I'll kidnap you and I won't let you go until you tell me what I want to hear."

"Can I pack first?" Prince asks, and Zesty should say 'no', because if he lets Prince pack his own bag, he's bound to slip in a weapon or two, and a lockpick, probably, and some other gadgets.

"No."

Prince reaches out, and Zesty takes a few seconds too long to decide which side to move to. Once he does, of course, it's not relevant anymore, because Prince is only kissing him, not -

"Can I pack first?"

"Yes."

Pure, noble, mostly innocent and _devious_ , Zesty reminds himself. And a very good kisser.

 

 _'What about our mission?'_ Punch writes, and it's a fair question, Zesty supposes, even if he doesn't much like the answer.

"I have already told Zesty I won't tell you where the real files are," Prince says calmly, as if he's been kidnapped by a group of non-violent thieves, one of whom is in love with him.

"You'd look so much better with some chains around your wrists," Zesty says. "And I think I should definitely shackle your legs."

Prince looks at him like he knows Zesty is bluffing, which is quite a feat, given that _Zesty_ doesn't even know that. He does know he'd like to tie Prince up, just a little. Nothing too heavy that would only get in the way later.

"I've also promised Zesty I won't try to escape."

"For the next eight hours?" Melon asks, because her memory's as good as Zesty's imagination.

"Ever," Prince says, and Zesty figures that's pretty much it for the whole chains-and-shackles plan.

 

Two days later, the rainforest is still there.

"You hid it from everyone, didn't you?" Zesty asks, feeling warm and fuzzy and generous. "You made Dad think Magpie stole it so he wouldn't be able to use it, and you didn't give it to me because of your honor." It makes perfect sense, now that he considers it. Of course Prince wouldn't willfully cooperate in any plan to demolish the rainforest.

"No," Prince says, which might mean anything (but not, probably 'I love you').

 

Another successful multi-million deal for Tastee Corp means another party for Zesty to put himself on display as a (mostly) useless playboy. He considers bringing Prince, but it doesn't seem like a good idea.

Pickle Ander _is_ an arms dealer, after all, and Zesty isn't any more fond of being held at gunpoint than he is of being held at swordpoint. (Less, in fact, since Prince is pretty much the only person he's ever met using a sword.)

"So I heard Magpie stole the formula for that serum you developed to clear out the rain forest." Talking to his father has become a lot easier now that he's Magpie. Before, he'd just get angry; now, as Magpie, he can _do_ things.

"What serum?" his father asks.

"And I hear they kidnapped Prince, too," Zesty says, before his brains catch up with the conversation just in time for him to realize -

"Prince is just on a study trip. Honestly, Zesty, I don't know where you hear all this useless gossip."

 

"You tricked me."

Prince looks, as always, pure, noble and mostly innocent. The deviousness never shows.

"You fed me a rumor about some new serum, because you knew I'd try to steal it," Zesty says. "And then you let me get away with a fake formula because you knew that would make me come back for you and kidnap you."

 _'That sounds like a very complicated plan,'_ Punch writes.

"I wanted to see you in action as Magpie." Prince shrugs. "You took a lot of risks."

Zesty has rarely ever been in danger as Magpie; he's a Tastee, after all. In any worst case scenario, he'd just tell people his true identity. "So now what?"

"Now I tell you that next time you go steal something, I'm coming with you," Prince says.

This one time, Zesty decides it's not just his imagination, or wishful thinking, or anything like that.

This one time, it really _is_ an 'I love you'.

"You think I'm going to let just anyone join Magpie?"

"Would it help if I kissed you again?"


End file.
